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About half of the habitat that supports fish in Ohio and nationwide no longer will do so by the
end of the century because of rising water temperatures and more-extreme storms caused by climate
change, according to a new report.

The National Wildlife Federation released the report yesterday as part of the advocacy group’s
push for stronger government action to cut pollutants linked to climate change and for stronger
conservation measures for waterways nationwide.

The report describes a grim future for fish.

In Ohio, species will be unable to live in increasingly warmer streams and in a growing
oxygen-depleted dead zone in Lake Erie.

“Climate change is changing habitats,” said Doug Inkley, a National Wildlife Federation senior
scientist and a co-author of the report.

What’s at stake? Sport fishing and the revenue tied to it, for one thing. In 2011, people spent
$25.7 billion on fishing in the United States.

The report shows a national fishing economy beset by problems such as shrinking Western mountain
snow packs that melt one to four weeks earlier than they did 50 years ago. That alters streams fed
by snowmelt and affects fish migration and spawning cycles.

At the same time, severe wildfires in Southwestern states choke streams and fish with ash and
sediment, while warmer winters cause later lake freezes, shortening ice-fishing seasons.

In Ohio, an estimated 1.16 million people who fished in 2011 spent more than $1 billion on the
sport, according to the report. Most of that estimate comes from Lake Erie’s charter-boat
industry.

Fish species that prefer cold-water habitats face the biggest threat.

Rising water temperatures would undermine stream restorations that are underway. So far, $6
million in federal funds has been spent to remove toxins from the Black River near Lorain. Steel
mills, shuttered years ago, polluted the waterways.

Inkley said 11 of 22 species that live in the restored stream, including yellow perch, white
perch and smallmouth bass, could not survive higher temperatures.

Ohio spends $750,000 a year to stock as many as 30,000 brown trout in three streams — Mad River,
the Clear Fork of the Mohican River and Clear Creek. That money also pays for stocking 100,000
rainbow trout each year in 69 lakes across the state.

Mark Bruce, an Ohio Department of Natural Resources spokesman, said the agency keeps track of
water temperatures to ensure that they remain good for fish. So far, so good, he said.

“We want to ensure that (fish) are surviving so that they can be caught,” Bruce said.

Those fertilizers help grow huge blooms of toxic blue-green algae, which rob the water of oxygen
when they decompose.

“It can be a contributing factor that lowers the number of fish that Lake Erie can support and
produce,” said Chris Winslow, assistant director of the Ohio Sea Grant program at Ohio State
University and the Stone Laboratory on Lake Erie.

The National Wildlife Federation supports measures to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, a key
gas linked to climate change, from coal-fired power plants, and it encourages the expansion of wind
and solar power.

Inkley said his group also supports programs that set aside and grow trees along stream banks to
help shade the water and keep fish cool.